f the Divine
compassion, how prone is the human heart to become indolent and
self-indulgent, and to relax something of that earnest effort with which
it had begun to pluck out the offending right eye. Or, having felt the
power of the Divine anger; having obtained clear conceptions of the
intense aversion of God towards moral evil; even the child of God
sometimes lives under a cloud, because he does not dare to make a right
use of this needed and salutary impression, and pass back to that
confiding trust in the Divine pity which is his privilege and his
birth-right, as one who has been sprinkled with atoning blood.

It is plain, from the texts of Scripture placed at the head of this
discourse, that the feeling and principle of fear is a legitimate one.[1]
In these words of God himself, we are taught that it is the font and
origin of true wisdom, and are commanded to be inspired by it. The Old
Testament enjoins it, and the New Testament repeats and emphasizes the
injunction; so that the total and united testimony of Revelation forbids
a religion that is destitute of fear.

The New Dispensation is sometimes set in opposition to the Old, and
Christ is represented as teaching a less rigid morality than that of
Moses and the prophets. But the mildness of Christ is not seen,
certainly, in the ethical and preceptive part of His religion. The Sermon
on the Mount is a more searching code of morals than the ten
commandments. It cuts into human depravity with a more keen and terrible
edge, than does the law proclaimed amidst thunderings and lightnings.
Let us see if it does not. The Mosaic statute simply says to man: "Thou
shalt not kill." But the re-enactment of this statute, by incarnate
Deity, is accompanied with an explanation and an emphasis that precludes
all misapprehension and narrow construction of the original law, and
renders it a two-edged sword that pierces to the dividing asunder of soul
and spirit. When the Hebrew legislator says to me: "Thou shalt not kill,"
it is possible for me, with my propensity to look upon the outward
appearance, and to regard the external act alone, to deem myself innocent
if I have never actually murdered a fellow-being. But when the Lord of
glory tells me that "whosoever is angry with his brother" is in danger
of the judgment, my mouth is stopped, and it is impossible for me to
cherish a conviction of personal innocency, in respect to the sixth
commandment. And the same is true of the seve